So many of the original Tiki Central members don't post anymore
or show up at events these days, What happened to them?
What are they doing today & why have they forsaken Tiki?

I don't want to start listing names from the "Member List"
just to find out that some one died in in an "Industrial press accident, Under mysterious circumstances"
and no one talks about it anymore kinda thing, I hate it when that happens.......

With a quick skim of the first 100 members on the Member List, it looks to me like about 17 are recent contributors on TC, as in, posting within the past month. 17% ain't TOO bad - I wonder what's the participation rate for the entire member list.

TC says there are 13,833 user accounts now, so I wonder if more than 17% have posted in the past month. That'd mean posts from 2350 different users in the past month. Maybe the oldtimers are keeping the average up, and it's the newcomers who're disappearing!

It also looks like 11 out of the first 100 are still grand members. In order for the member list at large to keep up with that rate, there would have to be 1521 current grand members in all. But there's only 245 grand members. So it looks like the oldtimers (first 100 anyway) are definitely keeping the average up! Oldtimers (from first 100) as grand members = 1 in 9. All users as grand members = 1 in 56!!!

Anyway, none of this has anything to do with who's showing up at events. But kinda interesting.

On 2012-08-25 00:49, bigtikidude wrote:Facebook,
private events,
kids popped up and tiki suffers,
hiding from the Tiki Newbies that spoiled it for them.

Jeff(btd)

How do we newbies spoil it? Not to derail ATP's original question, but I'm curious.
The economic collapse is probably the number 1 reason people have stopped attending events. Tiki drinks, tiki events and tiki collections cost a lot of money. There have been quite a few people on TC, Ebay and other sites that have admitted that they have to sell their collections to make ends meet because they lost their job or an expensive medical issue came up. It's sad.
_________________-Lori

Lori, Jeff is referring to an attitude that was prevalent
a few years ago,when some of the old school TCers
were voicing a dissatisfaction with the people who later joined the Tiki scene
and some might blame them (Unfairly) for the watering down of what they first established
as the ground work for the Tiki Revival.

They no longer participate on TC, voicing their frustration as the reason why.
I myself butted heads with a few as I see "Tiki" as a social phenomena & pastime
and not so much an academic one.

It seems like the high point of the tiki revival was somewhere around 2002-2003, long before we were active here (for shame) and at a time when there was still much work to be done -- but that's also probably why it was such a high point, simply because there was so much that needed doing. (At that point the tiki revival had already been going for a number of years, since at least the mid-90s, probably in step with the Cocktail Nation).

There still is work to be done. Although it seems that every last public estalishment that ever had a yard of bamboo, and maybe one little carved primitive of some sort on display in a corner, has been listed, linked, and cataloged on here, we know that it most definitely hasn't. We've certainly been lax with sharing info and pics, joining late and mostly lurking, and we can't be the only ones to have undocumented tiki in our collection.

But where is everybody? Facebook surely wins for just sharing event pics, and for people whose primary interest is that are probably not getting off their timeline to log in here anymore. But there must be more to it than Facebook. Or is there? Are we the only ones to notice how -- aside from a few stragglers and a couple of intermittent conversations -- this place has the feeling of a ghost town? It's like being down in the bar at 4am, after everyone has gone, when the neon's still flickering (it's open 24 hours, after all), and with a wide view of the dark surf from under the lanai you're just waiting for the sunrise...

Atomic Tiki Punk, do you have any links to relevant threads handy? Or has this ship left in the night?

Well we still have Dusty,Sven & a few others keeping up on the Archeology side
but you are right that there are far fewer Tiki Bars & restaurants to discover still,if any?
certainly all the important ones have been documented.

But we still have the social side of the Tiki revival to keep going, which for me is what it is all about anyway
I do go to most events (yes I am lucky to be in Calif. where alot goes on) and I don't see many of the old folks there

I am always WOW'ed by the the stuff Dusty digs up. Im always waiting to unearth something thats worth sharing on TC but its getting harder to find Tiki related things up here in my neck of the woods. I visit all my antique malls and thrift stores on a regular basis. I would love to be a real active contributer like some of the ol skool guys and gals on TC. I will just keep trying .

Lots are gone.
Some go to the FOM site more.
But I was surprised to see that there are
lots of old TC, Don't know what the cut off for
old timer is.
But lots of the 2002thru2005 are still here but
most of those that post are not from California.
Maybe the fact that you don't know them is why you don't miss them.
The meet and greet tiki game kinda F^#$ Tiki up for me, this group don't
like that group, this guy can't stand that guy.
Too many big egos really, me included.